


Fog

by Yods



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Depression, Dissociation, FoggyPOV, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 02, Senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8179372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yods/pseuds/Yods
Summary: After everyone is gone and everything has crashed, Matt keeps on going out.  It may be more difficult, but he has to.He's tired, that's all.





	

He pauses on the roof for a moment to get his breath back. The gang he’d taken down earlier had had the sense to all attack him at the same time, and one of them managed to clip him in the upper arm with a crowbar. His shoulder creaks when he rolls it, straining against the suit. Some more freedom of movement would be nice. The breeze catches the small pile of leaves and torn plastic in the corner and it comes alive swirling giddily for a moment. He can taste the dust and filth and smog in the air. It hasn’t rained in a while.  
  
  
  
He’d easily knocked the guy out with a billy-club to this chin, but the damage was already done. Hairline fracture, probably. He twists his arm again and feels for the point it begins to strain, pushes past it. His pulse thrums at the crack and the heat of the broken blood-vessels at the surface. The billy-clubs were never as satisfying as feeling something break under his fists, tacky with blood. He’d have to be more careful for a while.  
  
  
  
The door is cool against his forehead. Foggy once told him it was painted red – fire-engine and broken hearts red. Foggy stopped describing things for him a long time ago.  
  
  
  
It is cheap paint. When he stands back up flecks of it will cling to his skin like specks of dried blood. Although it might not be the right kind of red, he doesn’t really remember. There is a lot he doesn’t remember. If he concentrates he can convince himself he can feel Karen and Foggy’s heartbeats in the room beyond. They’d be joking, bright and easy with each other while getting annoyed at waiting for him so they could all go out.  
  
  
  
He was too tired to go out anyway.  
  
  
  
His fingers flex against the door but he can’t hold the happy mirage of their heartbeats.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


The dirty dishes are starting to stink. Every time he comes home it occurs to him again that he has to do something about it. He fully intends to clean up. But somehow he never gets that far. He can’t completely convince himself that this is something that has to be done right now. It’s taken so long – he could just as well do it tomorrow.

 

 

Instead he turns away and presses his face into the mattress. The scent of Elektra’s hair – orchids and cool steel – is still there under layers of sweat and blood. It’s faint. He can’t move in case he disturbs those last few molecules and she’ll be gone, just a weak gossamer strand that he can’t quite hang on to.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


He follows them into the tunnels again, into the sewers. The roiling stench and the echoes from wading in knee deep dreck make it almost impossible to track anything. He just needs to concentrate. A blade slips past his defences, through his suit, through his skin. He is protected by the confines of his ribs, a scrape on bone but it turn the knife. At least he can focus on the pain. Everything else is slipping from his grip. He gets knocked down and he chokes and he gags and he’s drowning before he manages to get back to his feet. There’s still a fight here. That’s something he can do. He ducks under the swing of the blade, catches a wrist, hears a crunch and a scream. Stops the noise with an uppercut to the jaw that tears at the gash in his side. Listens but the others are long gone. ‘Sloppy,’ he hears a gruff voice, but it’s just the movement of water and there’s no-one there.

 

 

Time stretches and he’s not sure how long it takes him to get back home. His own blood is tacky on his hands as he keeps pressure on the cut. He imagines Claire tutting at his injury, soft fingers on his skin as she stiches him up. Warm smell of coconut in her hair and antiseptic on her hands. He stumbles in relief once he gets home and catches himself against his bedroom door. His hands are slippery. It’s just a few more steps and he lets himself fall into bed and he sleeps, blood and sewerage soaking into the sheets.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


He has to do better. He wakes up filthy and stinking and the cut is already getting unhealthily warm with infection. It buzzes and draws all the heat of the room leaving him shivering. The dried filth flecks and itches on his skin.

 

 

He has to do better. Cleans himself up. Treats the injury. Gets fresh blankets and goes to sleep on the couch – he’s never going to be able to fully get rid of the putrid sewerage soaked into the bed. So much of his blood has already soaked into the couch on so many nights. He can still sense Foggy on the chair across from him, heartbeat rabbit fast. Hurt and angry, the bond between them stretched taut. Almost to breaking point. Almost but not yet. Not yet then.

 

 

He has to do better. After a few days he’s strong enough to walk around. Cleaning the apartment is too much, he wouldn’t know where to start. But he can behave like a person. Goes shopping. The warmth of the sun is unfamiliar and too tight on his skin. The food breath and tripping heartbeats and stomachs growling around him are too close and too many. The girl at the store knows him and she helps him with his groceries. She smells of French fries and cherries and pity. She hands him the bag and in all probability the right change and he can hear the smile in her voice as he walks away. He doesn’t know how to smile back.

 

 

There’s someone following him. It’s daylight and there are people on the street and some nervous kid is following him and he can’t react. He knows what is going to happen and he can’t react. The kid speeds up and knocks him down. His glasses fall and crack. Dirty hands scrabble for his wallet – his jacket rips – and he curls himself around the cut in his side so the hasty kick lands on the back of his ribs. A bruise like any other. The kid’s gone in a scatter of footsteps and anxious sweat. Someone helps him up and his cane is pressed into his hand. Concerned voices flutter – too close, too many. Offer to call the police, to help him home, to get him new groceries. He needs to get away. There’s a crunch as someone steps on his glasses. The voices falter, flutter away. Two pigeons fight on the roof.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


The sun is still shining and he can’t go out. His fists buzz and he can’t go out. He is trapped here by the sunlight like a bug in bright amber and something has to shatter. The plates and glasses he has stacked everywhere go first. Broken chairs make satisfying weapons to use on everything else. He doesn’t stop until he destroys everything in the room. Shards of wood and ripped upholstery and twisted metal. He pants but it’s not enough. Broken glass cracks under the soles of his shoes. He can rest now until it is late enough to go out.

 

 

The couch is demolished and the bed is ruined. He takes the last clean bedding and makes a nest in the corner of the bedroom. It’s cold and uncomfortable but it’s enough. In college when he couldn’t sleep he’d listen to the slow cadence of Foggy’s heartbeat and gentle rumble of breath in his chest, focussed on the warm-body smell of him as he slept. Foggy isn't here anymore, but he can still hear him. He can still sleep.

  


  
  
Despite his best efforts the previous day the suit still reeks of sewerage but it doesn’t matter. He barely notices it anymore. He has to get up. He has work to do.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


There is someone in his apartment. Expensive suit, new shoes, heartbeat fast. Maybe one of Fisk’s men? He can’t sense a gun but that doesn’t mean much. The stranger kicks at a broken piece of wood and it skitters over broken glass. Across the street a couple is arguing, hurt swirling in the room.

 

 

The man makes his way over into the bedroom. He’s holding something in his hand and he can probably see him by now. That’s OK. The apartment smells of blood and rot and sweat and sewerage and someone’s expensive cologne. Maybe he can rest now. He closes his eyes and focusses on the last echoes in the room. The last fragments of Elektra and Foggy and Stick and Karen and Claire, and he lets himself drift off into the fog with them.  
There is a hand on his shoulder. He startles. He tries to swat it away but he is too wrapped up in the sheets and he can’t move. The hand doesn’t go away. He can feel the pulse thrum through the palm of the hand.

 

 

“…on, buddy. Please. Snap out of it.”

 

 

That is Foggy’s voice. Foggy is here. Where is Fisk’s man? He has to do something. Foggy could be in danger. He struggles against the blankets but he can’t sit up.

 

 

There is no-one else. He is imagining things again. But the hand is still there.

 

 

“F… Foggy?” The name swoops through the air and out the broken window. Impossible.

 

 

Foggy sighs. A small wisp of a sound. “Hey.”

 

 

The hand on his shoulder helps him upright. He shrinks away from the rough wall.

 

 

“Are you hurt?”

 

 

Is he? He shrugs. Foggy’s voice is soft and kind. Why would he talk to him like that? Is he dying?

 

 

Suddenly the too tight blankets fall away from him. Cool air stings on the cut on his ribs. The scab pulls at his skin.

 

 

“That looks infected.”

 

 

He barely hears it. He can still feel the heartbeat through the warm hand on his shoulder. A small soft animal he has to protect.

 

 

And then the hand is gone. Foggy is gone. He slumps against the wall. Alone. There’s a pregnant cat in the alley outside. She’s hungry and limping slightly. He follows her as she goes through the trash and then crosses the road. Cars roar past leaving a trail of carbon and nitrides and sulphur.

 

 

Soft fingers are bandaging the cut in his side. Maybe that will stop all the warmth running out of his body.

 

 

“Claire? Claire.”

 

 

“It’s just me, Matt.”

 

 

Foggy is still here. He reaches out and his fingers collide with soft woven wool at Foggy’s elbow. He holds on. Still here.

 

 

He sniffs and the scent of warm salt fills up the hollow in his chest. “Are you crying?”

 

 

Foggy doesn’t say anything. He wishes he would. He can’t interpret silence. It swirls and he can’t hold on to it. “No. I’m not crying.”

 

 

“Oh.” He’s gotten it wrong again. He has to do better. But for now Foggy’s hands are soft and warm and his heartbeat is close.

 

 

“When was the last time you ate something?”

 

 

There isn't any food. He’d lost the groceries. And before that? How long since the mugging? How long since the fall in the sewer? The questions fall flat on the ground and slither along the wall. No. That is the curtain. The wind.

 

 

“Matt?”

 

 

“I don't know.”

 

 

A brush of hair against his collar as Foggy nods. “You’re not working. Guess you don’t have any money.”

 

 

“I have money.” As he says it he realises the trap he just built for himself.

 

 

“Oh. How?” Gentle fingers put the last touch on the bandage and then rest in place. They don’t leave. He still has a grip on his elbow.

 

 

“Elektra,” he says, and she is lost in a puff of breath. Gone.

 

 

Foggy pulls his hands away.

 

 

He tries to keep a grip on his elbow but the smooth wool slips from his grasp.

 

 

Foggy stands up, knees creaking, and walks away. Gone.

 

 

No, not gone. He is still in the apartment. Striding purposefully. There’s a baby crying in an apartment three floors down. He should go tell someone that her diaper needs changing. Foggy is still here. Still crunching over broken glass. “What are you doing?”

 

 

“Packing a bag.”

 

 

He almost asks where they are going. That would have been a mistake. There is no ‘they’ anymore. The baby is still crying. A tired voice shushes and sings softly. He hums along. “Why?”

 

 

“You’re coming home with me.”

 

 

“Why?”

 

 

There are soft hands on his shoulders. He startles again, but Foggy is right in front of him.

 

 

“Arms up.”

 

 

“What? Why?”

 

 

“So you can get dressed.”

 

 

“I can do that myself.”

 

 

Foggy steps away. That wasn’t his intention. “OK.”

 

 

He struggles with the hoody for an embarrassingly long time. Foggy picked out the softest things he owns and they smell of him now. Somewhere far out into the city gunshots ring out. He stops but the sound has scattered and fragmented and he can’t pinpoint the source.

  
  
Hands fuss at him and pull the hoody down his back. He doesn’t remember getting that far. He wants to lean into the warm comforting body smell next to him. He won’t. He can’t afford to be soft.  
  
  
  
A hesitation. “You seem kind of out of it, Matt.” His heart beats a solid truth.  
  
  
  
“I’m just really tired.”  
  
  
  
Foggy’s arm is around his shoulders. He can’t keep from leaning in anymore. The baby has stopped crying. The couple isn't arguing anymore. “I can see that.”  
  
  
  
It isn’t weakness. Foggy has to know that it isn’t weakness. Anyone can get tired. Even the strong. “Frank… When I brought him in. Frank said he was tired too.”  
  
  
  
The arm around his shoulder tightens. Foggy’s warm heartbeat is all around him. “That long?”  
  
  
  
Yes? No? He’s getting heavier. The ground presses up against his hips and his spine. “It wasn’t nearly as bad then.”  
  
  
  
He leans his head on Foggy’s shoulder. He’s tired. That’s all. Foggy’s breath stirs in his hair and he can feel the solid cadence of his heartbeat through his ribs. The city is quiet and he falls asleep.


End file.
